Why did the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) generalize in the hadith (Adhere to my Sunnah and the Sunnah of the Rightly Guided Caliphs after me) and then specify in the hadith (Follow those who come after me, Abu Bakr and 'Umar)?

The questioner : The honorable Shaykh (may Allah preserve him), the questioner says: The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said Then in another hadith in al-Tirmidhi, he (peace and blessings be upon him) said Why did he generalize in the first hadith and specify in the previous hadith? We ask for clarification, and may Allah reward you with good?

The Shaykh : Do not see a contradiction between the two hadiths, because the fewer does not contradict the more. We mentioned to you the first hadith, that the Ummah will split into seventy-three sects, one of which is the saved sect, and its sign is that it holds fast to what the Messenger of Allah and his Companions were upon, so it includes the Companions.
Then we mentioned to you the second hadith , so these are included among his Companions, and they are the best of them. Then came this hadith about which the questioner asked, in which it is stated that these also have a special status among the Companions after the Rightly Guided Caliphs. So the total of those specified by name from the Companions of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in this hadith and that one is six, and they are from his Companions (peace be upon him) who were mentioned in the first hadith.
As for specifying by name, there is no doubt that this is a known Arabic style among the people of Arabic grammar, that specifying a thing by name means alerting the listeners to a particularity of that specified thing. So when he mentioned his Sunnah and associated with them the four Caliphs, in that is a strong alert to the virtue of the Rightly Guided Caliphs. So it is no wonder that they were from the ten promised Paradise. Then when he specified Ibn Mas'ud and those with him, in that is an alert that they also have a status in companionship and in knowledge of what the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) was upon. This is a known style.
As we return to say, why did he specify the Companions in that hadith from among the generations that come after the Companions, and he included them all in the authentic, indeed mass-transmitted hadith ? In this hadith, the three generations are mentioned in the hadith of the sects. The first generation is mentioned. Why did he specify them by name? Because they are better than the following generations. And so, specifying a person, a group, or anything, or any ruling by name indicates that it has special care in the Shari'ah.
One of the most famous examples that brings closer to you what we are saying is the saying of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) "Hajj is 'Arafah." Whoever does not know this style that drew attention to it just now will understand that if a person stands in 'Arafah, that is it, this is the Hajj, and he does not have to do tawaf or sa'y, because the Messenger restricted Hajj to standing at 'Arafah. And the matter is not so. So why did the Messenger mention Hajj without the other pillars or obligations of Hajj? They said that is an alert, an alert from him (may the prayer and peace of Allah be upon him), because standing in 'Arafah is one of the greatest pillars of Hajj, so Hajj is not valid except with standing in 'Arafah.
other than that